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Integral Compact Fluorescent Lamp

Integral Compact Fluorescent Lamp

Description

After the initial introduction of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) in 1981, many competing lamp companies placed products on the market. The first thirty years of compact fluorescents has seen a wide array of styles and features offered as lamp makers attempt to set their products apart from competitors.

This U-Lite unit is an integral CFL—the lamp is all one piece. Integral lamps are typically more expensive to replace than modular designs that allow the user to replace only the part that fails. However integral units do not require suppliers to stock replacement parts, and they free consumers from having to try to select the correct part for their device.

The U-Lite used a slightly larger tube than other companies' CFLs. That simplified the manufacturing process and reduced stress on the phosphor, though it limited the number of tube-legs that could be put on a single lamp. As many as four pairs have been mounted on CFL designs from other makers. More tubes of the size used on the U-Lite would make the lamp too large to install in many fixtures.